Sunday, June 17, 2012

My sweet husband and I met 20 years ago last month—yes, we were five. Okay, we weren’t five, but 20 just makes me sound like I’ve logged a few more years than I care to admit—so let’s just leave it at that!!

I had a three criteria when dating someone (above the underlying *must love the Lord and respect me* criteria), and I would mentally check off these items in my head when I was dating and wondering if I could consider someone to marry…

How would this guy react while we are sitting on the bench at church with a few kids in tow and they start misbehaving??

How much fun would he be to talk to on long road trips, would we laugh the whole time??

Would he hold my hand and dote on me when I am sick, or in labor??

I really did fall in love with my husband the first time I met him(wish I could say the same for him-HA!)—I have all the lovesick teenager journal entries to prove it!! He cares for me when I am sick, he makes me laugh all the time and is so easy going, and if you know us AT ALL—you would laugh at my #1, because he wrestles Justin at church every week!! He is a great dad (and husband!)—

Happy Father’s Day!!!

One of the things I love about him is that he supports me in having a break whenever I need it. He knows me well enough to know my limits. One of my limits is cleaning up kid throw up—try as I might, I just can’t do it without throwing up myself!! He always takes care of the kids, or me for that matter, when we are throwing up!!

At the end of last year we had a nasty bug going around and Justin got it and was throwing up everywhere!! It was SO sad. Little Miss had rehearsals for the Nutcracker and in an effort to protect her from getting sick—we banished her to her room with her sewing kit and told her to create whatever she wanted to and keep herself busy.

Justin was sick all night, and my hubby stayed up and took care of him as he always does and the next day he stopped by home during lunch and tried to help me sterilize the house and clean up all the mess. In the rush to grab the laundry from Little Miss’ room, he felt a stabbing pain in his foot, between his big toe and second toe. He yelled for me to come help him, and when I got in the room with Little Miss, we found him sitting on her bed holding his foot and biting his lip. He held up his foot and said, “I think I may have stepped on a needle, can you see it??” I looked and didn’t see anything and so we all got down on our hands and knees to search the carpet. We couldn’t find it. We went back and forth thinking it was just lost in the carpet and he must have stepped on it—until he took his fingers and gave a squeeze on his foot. He looked at me with sheer panic on his face and said, “It is in my foot!!” Yep, I’ve said it before, but you just can’t make this kind of stuff up!!

After he drove himself—yes, DROVE HIMSELF—to the doctor’s office, they did an x-ray and this is what they saw…

OUCH!! Doesn’t that make your foot hurt just looking at it?? He ended up having to be put out and have surgery!! I couldn’t go with him because of the barfing kids and nursing baby—so one of his good friends took him to surgery. To make things worse, it had “traveled” by the time they got in there through the bottom of his foot so they had to cut him open on the top of his foot to get it out! CRAZY!! He ended up being on crutches and everything—it was insane.

That’s true love, I tell ya!! The man took a sewing needle for the team!! I love him so much--not just because of the needle thing;)

We have new rules about sewing needles and where they need to be kept at all times now…

Thursday, June 14, 2012

It wouldn’t be right for us to not get sick at least once during the summer, and so we spent this week taking our turn. I was born a worrier and my already high anxiety level doesn’t fare well when the kids get sick!! It gets worse when it’s Justin—and he was the one struck the hardest this week. So we’ve been in survival mode only this week, and didn’t have any therapies.

I decided that I might write a new series of posts entitled “Dear Autism…” I have SO much stuff running through my head when I’m trying to cope with the day and Justin destroyed a couch cushion this week and I thought, “Dear Autism, please stop telling him to do that!!”

So here’s my “Dear Autism’s” for this past week…

Dear Autism, Please stop telling Justin that all the cushions of the couches in the house need to be thrown on the floor. And PLEASE, please stop telling him to unzip all their cases and pick apart the stuffing…

Dear Autism, Please stop telling Justin that he’s really not tired in the middle of the night. Especially when he’s sick and needs his sleep!!

Dear Autism, I admire that you are allowing Justin to be “typical” at times, but the laughing at Little Miss when she fell down this week was probably not the best time for him to be a “typical” peer!

Dear Autism, As we meet a new Psychologist for some testing—please don’t tell Justin that is a good time to try some new “odd” behaviors. And besides that, please don’t tell him to try something new like run down the halls and open all the doors to the offices….or to pretend like he's going to fall through the railing on the 2nd floor.

Dear Autism, As the new psychologist is blocking Justin in the hallway so he can’t escape, please don’t cheer Justin on to become a football player and try to take her out—and accidentally pull her shirt off her shoulder.

So there you have it!! Those are the funny snippets of the week!! So if you see the guy named Autism, let him know I have some polite requests;)

Even though we were in survival mode this week, the “un-sick” kids still carried on with our Summer “Homeschooling” program (lots of great workbooks and lessons). Little Miss has already figured out the secret to success is to get it done as fast as she can so she can create things like this…

She could do this kind of stuff ALL DAY!! I love it!! Give her some paper, and she’ll come up with some kind of masterpiece!! Hope you all had a great, healthy week full of creative fun!! Or at least relaxing fun:)

Monday, June 11, 2012

I love decorating my mantel for the holidays, and I love buntings—so naturally I felt I had to make a patriotic bunting for the summer. I got my inspiration fromthis post at Sugar Tot Designs.

I wanted it to be more rustic than cute so I used burlap and a burnt umber colored fabric instead of bright red. I love how it looks in my great room!!

Here’s how I made it.

1. I measured my fireplace mantel and then divided the total number of inches by three (which I will call measurement A).

2. I took a paper grocery sack and cut it open and then measured the length of one bunting (measurement A).

3. Next I folded the measurement A paper sack in half and cut a half arch so when unfolded I had my desired half circle for the bunting (pattern B).

4. I cut 2 red fabric half circles, and one blue fabric half circle using pattern B, these are your largest half circles that are your base for each bunting.

5. Next I cut about 2 inches of the outside edge of pattern B and then cut 3 pieces of burlap, these are your middle half circles.

6. Cut pattern B one more time, about 2 more inches, and then cut 2 blue fabrics and 1 red fabric using the newly cut pattern B, these will be your smallest bunting pieces.

7. I sewed a zig zag stitch around the edge of the largest half circles first, in a contrasting color (cream).

8. Then I pinned the burlap circles and pinned them to the larger circles and then stitched them together using a contrasting zig zag stitch (red).

9. Next I pinned the 2 blue and 1 red smallest half circle to each bunting and stitched with a contrasting zig zag stitch (cream).

10. I measured a piece of twine to the length of my fireplace mantel and then zig zag stitched (at the top of each bunting) all three buntings together.

I love leaving this up all through June and July!! We have a family tradition of getting Old Navy flag shirts every year and taking a family picture. Last year we took them with my bunting—and it was the perfect backdrop!!

Can’t wait to take some this year with our baby girl!!*** UPDATE*** Be sure to check out my new, updated version with chevron fabric!! http://sewsweetcottage.blogspot.com/2013/05/happy-memorial-day.html

About Me

My sew sweet cottage is filled with 4 little kids who keep me busy. My oldest has Autism, and life can get a little crazy sometimes! I keep my sanity, or what's left of it, by spending time sewing, decorating, baking, throwing a party, and enjoying life's little moments. Contact me SewSweetCottage@yahoo.com